Another maths puzzle

[Speicher]

I would like to make the flower borders in my garden narrower than they are now. The lady who lives opposite me has employed a landscape gardener to dig up her garden, and put in a large patio. She very kindly agreed to let me have the top soil and turf from her garden. Are you with me so far?

The gardener's wheelbarrow is very large, with a bucket say about 30" long, 15" deep and 20" wide. He tipped about twelve barrows' full of soil/turf on the end of my garden. The turf and topsoil are needed in the back garden, and there are twelve steps all approximately 8" high.

Using two fairly equally loaded buckets, how much surf/topsoil in total did I carry up the steps? Unfortunately I did not count the number of times I walked up the steps carrying topsoil.

 

[steve50]

A lot.

 

[Milkfloat]

Half of it, in this world of equality your wife did the other half.

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

2 bucketsful

 

[potsy]

None, you got someone else to do it

 

[steve50]

Crucial question, was the soil wet, moist or dry?
It would make a difference.

 

[Speicher]

I was expecting some sensible answers.

 

[ColinJ]

None - you tried picking up the buckets of soil but they were too heavy, so you went indoors and made a pot of tea to have with the biscuits you would nibble while trying to work out who you could persuade to do the heavy lifting!

 

[Speicher]

Crucial question, was the soil wet, moist or dry?
It would make a difference.

It was dry. Do you need to know the size of the buckets?

 

[ColinJ]

Damn - beaten by potsy again!



Not on the bike, I should add!

 

[Speicher]

Half of it, in this world of equality your wife did the other half.

 

[Moon bunny]

2 tons

 

[TheDoctor]

Half of it, in this world of equality your wife did the other half.

When I met Speicher, she didn't mention a wife...
I suppose we need to know the size of the buckets.

 

[steve50]

It was dry. Do you need to know the size of the buckets?

Yes.

 

[Speicher]

One bucket was a substantial heavy gardening sort of bucket, the other bucket was smaller, red and lighter.